SEARCH FINESCALE.COM

Enter keywords or a search phrase below:

Life after death,the story of the flightsim that wouldnt die

2653 views
11 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    June 2015
Life after death,the story of the flightsim that wouldnt die
Posted by Axeman on Saturday, July 25, 2015 9:18 PM

Until 2001,i was,for lack of a better term,a luddite.

I had not embraced PCs and the internet at all.

Then I got quite ill,and during my long recovery,friends whom HAD embraced the personal computer age,decided that a PC and a few sims and games would aid me in my rehabilitation.When my friends gave me the PC,joystick,and stack of programs I smiled and thanked them and had them set it up on a table in the garage.

I didnt see it again for 3 months,when I did finally sit down in front of that PC,and looked through the various sims and games they had brought me,one stood out,i liked the name of it.....

European Air War

basically a WW2 european theater air combat simulator with a very interesting take on the animation.

Now,in late 2001,after having played/flown this sim daily for a few months,I got on my buddys PC,which was hooked up to the internet,and googled for EAW updates.....and found a large and devoted following,followed a link to a sim forum,signed up,and joined the modern world.

I eventually became one of the people making patches,mods as it were,for the old sim,offering them to the community free,the sim had a few benefactors whom made websites filled with downloadable mods for the sim and for years,there was a real vibrant evolving EAW community.

Time and technologies march on,PCs improved,graphic cards improved,new sims appeared with much higher resolution,better this,flashier that.......and the community slowly dwindled,with only a few diehard devotees still feverishly  digging deeper into the executable.....I have rejoined the original forum,after receiving a notice on Fb that a breakthrough had occured regarding,not only compatability with modern pcs,and modern graphic devices,but also this new executable added all sorts of mods that had improved the sims look and feel.

I downloaded the executable,clicked install,and for the first time in 6 years,was flying in European Air War again Geeked

at that forum,in the short time ive been back,has had a 10X increase in thread views regarding this new download.....so,EAW seems,for the moment,to be enjoying a resurrection of sorts

Anybody here a retro flightsimmer? give it a try!!! Toast

  • Member since
    January 2013
Posted by BlackSheepTwoOneFour on Sunday, July 26, 2015 11:19 AM

The only flight sim games I owned were IL-2 Sturmovik, Microsoft Pacific Theater Flight Sim, and the European Theater sim you're talking about (if that's the one I have LOL!), and Freelancer. I wished I had picked up the add-on of IL-2 called Forgotten Battles. Freelancer was the best space sim hands down. There are 2 space sims I've got my eye on called Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen. Star Citizen is one I really love to get but man, talk about a pricey tag to play online and buy ships.

  • Member since
    March 2009
  • From: Yorkville, IL
Posted by wolfhammer1 on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 10:42 PM

Where is the web site for this?  I'd like to download it also.  Thanks.

 

John

  • Member since
    June 2015
Posted by Axeman on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 11:20 PM
  • Member since
    March 2012
  • From: Corpus Christi, Tx
Posted by mustang1989 on Thursday, August 6, 2015 4:06 AM

I had CFS1 , 2 and 3. I really liked 3's features but didn't have enough computer. I enjoyed alot of time on CFS1 and 2. With 2 I got so good at handling the Zero that I could take on 6 Corsair at one time .....using only the cowl machine guns! lol . More often than not I'd get my   shot off but there was one time I racked up 26 Corsair shot down (with infininite ammo for those two jokes of guns in that cowl) . I haven't played flight sims now in 7 years but maybe one of these days I'll climb back in the cockpit....but that'll mean I've gotta give up modeling and that aint gonna happen for a while!!Wink

                   

 Forum | Modelers Social Club Forum (proboards.com) 

dmk
  • Member since
    September 2008
  • From: North Carolina, USA
Posted by dmk on Thursday, August 6, 2015 1:04 PM

My two favorites (both ran in DOS) where Aces of the Pacific: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aces_of_the_Pacific

 

And Falcon 3.0:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(video_game_series)

 

 Both had the options to setup missions, way points and get to fight different opponents. I though the opponent AI was pretty good in both for the day.

  • Member since
    September 2015
  • From: The Redwood Empire
Posted by Aaronw on Wednesday, September 2, 2015 1:03 PM

I remember European Air War, I loved the Battle of Britain missions literally hosing down He-111s with an 8 gun Hurricane.

I played most of the early flightsims, Aces over the Pacific / Europe, Microsoft CFS 1-3, Janes WW2 Fighters, Red Baron, Red Baron 2, Janes Fighter Anthology, Mig Alley.

The more recent flight sims are pretty, but don't seem to grab me the way those older games did, they seem to have hit a perfect compromise between sim and arcade game.

I haven't been able to get European Airwar to run for years, will definately have to check out that link.

  • Member since
    December 2003
  • From: 37deg 40.13' N 95deg 29.10'W
Posted by scottrc on Wednesday, September 2, 2015 1:57 PM

dmk

My two favorites (both ran in DOS) where Aces of the Pacific: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aces_of_the_Pacific

 

And Falcon 3.0:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(video_game_series)

 

 Both had the options to setup missions, way points and get to fight different opponents. I though the opponent AI was pretty good in both for the day.

 

 

Man, those were my favorite too, and after my disks wore out, I haven't played a sim since. 

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Harrisburg, PA
Posted by Lufbery on Wednesday, September 2, 2015 9:41 PM

I still play CFS2 and Jane's F/A-18. They run pretty well in Windows 7. Smile

I doubt that we'll see flight sims like those again. The systems modeling in Jane's F/A-18 is phenominal.

Strangely enough, there's a very good flight sim for Android and Apple tablets called Infinite Flight. I really like the flight model on it and the price is very reasonable.

-Drew

Build what you like; like what you build.

  • Member since
    October 2007
  • From: Scotland
Posted by Milairjunkie on Thursday, September 3, 2015 3:13 AM

I used to play CFS's, F/A-18 & EF2000 - F/A-18 was the favourite by a long way, CFS's being a bit simplistic & EF2000 being the opposite. Before online gaming properly got going used to play EF2000 over Ethernet with neighbours in my block of flats - cables running up & down stairs & through letterboxes.......

I stuck with F/A-18 for quite a while until Unreal & then Unreal Tournament took over my gaming time......

  • Member since
    November 2009
  • From: SW Virginia
Posted by Gamera on Thursday, September 3, 2015 10:00 AM

Yeah I played the heck out of 'Aces of the Pacific' and 'Aces Over Europe'. I loved the AotP: WWII 1946 expansion that followed Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. Lotsa cool planes there like the F7F, F8F, P-80, and the Kikka. 

I picked up Il-2 a few years ago but somehow I just don't enjoy as much as the earlier games. Not sure if it's more complex or just being older I've lost my taste for flight sims. 

"I dream in fire but work in clay." -Arthur Machen

 

  • Member since
    April 2013
Posted by RichT on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 9:48 AM

Did anybody play Warbirds? It was a massively multiplayer WWII combat flight sim I used to play for hours at a time in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Excellent flight physics, dozens and dozens of folks online at a time, divided into 4 'countries'. There were a few active duty fighter pilots that played it which made things pretty interesting if you tangled with one.  

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY!

Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.

SEARCH FORUMS
FREE NEWSLETTER
By signing up you may also receive reader surveys and occasional special offers. We do not sell, rent or trade our email lists. View our Privacy Policy.